Slide-Out Keyboards: The New Flip Phone

One of the things I don't like about the slide-out keyboard smartphones is that they're mostly bulky.  Nor do I like the ones that flip on the side to unveiling a fully QWERTY layout.

But they are here to stay.  They're the new flip phone.  And given their popularity even now, I suspect that they'll gain in popularity as manufacturers are able to get more technology into the phone and slim it down more.  I look at them and they are still thicker than the iPhones and the Blackberries.

At the same time, the slimming down might take a bit longer as phone makers race to match features with the full-screened devices as those types of smart devices don't have to contend with fitting a physical keyboard into the phone.

I started thinking about this as we get closer to the release of the Android phone from T-Mobile.  If you don't already know, it's a slide-out style phone form HTC.  Anyway, listen, phone-makers.  If you can do for these slide-out phones what Motorola did for the flip phones with RAZR, you'll rock the mobile industry and maybe even have the market all to yourself for a while.